Category Archives: Entertainment

musings about film, television, music and other things entertaining… or not

Living in the “Mad Men” Kitchen

Sometimes you realize that you’re living inside the TV more than you ever thought possible. At least this was my realization last winter when I spent February in Milwaukee helping out my dad. He still lives in the 1949 Midcentury house he bought with my mother in 1988, so for 30 years now. As you can see, they never really updated their 1950s kitchen. As a fan of “Mad Men,” I came to realize that my father is basically living in Betty Draper’s kitchen in their fictitious house in the NY burbs of Ossining, New York.

Just a few fun photos for you to make that connection. That is all.
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ONE Gallery Exhibit – Colin Campbell and Lisa Steele in L.A.

Gosh. I haven’t posted anything on this blog in over a month. So, I thought the least I could do would be to post a photo of an art exhibit I went to:

One of these things is not like the other!

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You can read all about it here. Upshot is that it’s two Canadians coming to L.A. in the 1970s and making some video art – the weirdness of Los Angeles, freeways, violence, all of that. Still this is early enough so that the concept is not tedious. We forget how compelling it can be to slap on some makeup, a blonde wig and sunglasses and just start talking. A lot of the improv I did find hypnotic. It’s not for everyone but it was for me.

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Homo-centric Readings, January 2018

From lower left, Laura Houlberg, John Boucher, Larry Buhl and Hank Henderson

Great readings last night at Stories in Echo Park.
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John read a bittersweet memoir of helping ladies living in a hospice with their hair appointments; Larry read some sexy fan fiction revolving around the gay characters from “Mad Men;” Laura read a number of her poems. Thanks to Hank as always for putting this on and to Stories for the venue. It’s always inspiring AND motivating for me to keep keepin’ on.

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Student Video from a Long Long Time Ago (well, 1978)

My nephew recently found this and had it converted from the original super 8 film to digital. The woman in the short film is my sister, Pati Arnold. The baby is my nephew, Joe Wantoch. This film was taken in the fall of 1978 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Streets were Bartlett Avenue and North Avenue and Oakland Avenue.

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Oh, it’s silent, so there’s nothing wrong with your speakers.

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Thoughts on “Ballet 422” and the David H. Koch Theater at Lincoln Center

 

I liked this documentary on Ballet 422, which refers to the 422nd original ballet produced from the New York City Ballet Company. This one comes from choreographer Justin Peck, a 25-year old dancer/choreographer – and it’s his first ballet for the company.

For someone like me, who knows little of the world of dance, it was educational to watch the process of choreography. It’s always been somewhat of an enigma, or it’s like magic. Anyway, I really enjoyed the interplay between the choreographer and the dancers, and the parts that almost seemed co-created, or at least collaborated on. How these fantastic dancers remember what they’re supposed to be doing is truly beyond me! But they do, I guess that’s why they’re stars of the NYC Ballet, eh?  Plus of course, there’s lots of eye candy no matter what your orientation happens to be.

The documentary (from director Jody Lee Lipes) also shows the requisite behind-the-scenes, including some parts of Justin’s life beyond Lincoln Center. We see him waiting for the subway, we see him go to his apartment in a borough other than Manhattan. It looks big enough by NYC standards, but then it got me thinking, he, a member of the corps de ballet probably doesn’t make enough money to live in that toniest part of New York.

So I looked up dancer salaries to get an idea. They are in the range, it seemed, of around $50,000 to $80,000 depending on what city they were dancing in and if they were chorus or principals or had a longer season, etc.

I found this information on The DL Reporter (http://dlreporter.com/2014/04/14/ballet-wage-issues/): (Raquel Nieves, author)

Jeremy Telman in his article, “New York City Ballet Dancers Agree to New Contract,” cited that a quick internet search suggests that a member of the corp de ballet makes $1,500 per week. He describes how the average rent in the city of Manhattan for a cramped one-bedroom is $3,150 per month and that it can get hard to find a two bedroom for under $1 million. “If the dancer gets paid for 38 weeks per year, that comes out to $76,000 per year, and that is a good salary in New York City as long as you can share a studio apartment in an outer borough with two or more other members of the corp (or you can marry an investment banker).[3]” Principal dancers, essentially the “A” list celebrities at ballet companies, make roughly about $1,000-$2,000 more per week than the corp de ballet (think below the line talent). Principals make more with the additional guest performance or teaching gig, but only a small percentage of dancers who join the company ever become principals.

So there you have it, on stage, like so many performers including actors and musicians, dancers appear to be so incredibly glamorous yet the society fails to reward artists for this. I also noticed during my viewing of the film that the theater building at Lincoln Center where the New York City Ballet performs is the David H. Koch Theater.

Yes, as in that Koch! Right, the Koch brothers, those infamous John Birch society right wing billionaire polluters from Kansas!

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According to the theater’s website:

In July 2008, philanthropist David H. Koch pledged to provide $100 million over the next 10 years for the purpose of renovating the theater and providing for an operating and maintenance endowment. It was renamed the David H. Koch Theater at the New York City Ballet Winter gala, Tuesday, November 25, of that year.

So great, he’s willing to support the actual structure and maintenance of the physical building, but the dancers who fly on the stage? Well, not so much, apparently. They are members of a union [American Guild of Musical Artists (AGMA)] and, well, you know, the Kochs, they just don’t like unions. Their group “Americans for Prosperity” helps states like Wisconsin gut union contracts, which is just another way to race to the bottom and destroy the middle class.

So I guess the dancers won’t really be able to look to David H. Koch for any help with their meager salaries that don’t really allow them to live in the city in which they perform. I guess it’s always been that way for robber barons, i.e., Andrew Carnegie probably didn’t help any turn of the century violinists with their rent either, though he built a theater in which they could perform.

Not that the $76,000 annual salary would make much sense to someone like David H. Koch, who, according to this piece, made $3 million PER HOUR from investments in 2012.

One of the last images in the film “Ballet 422” is of Justin Peck returning to the dressing room after all the curtain calls for this successful ballet premiere to don his costume to dance in the corps de ballet for the next offering in the program, later the same night. A worker among workers, a union man.

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“The Conversation” and the NSA Spying on Everyone

Watched Francis Ford Coppola’s movie “The Conversation” again recently (I had a huge crush on both Robert Shields and Frederick Forrest in my younger years!) and thought it prescient.

We studied this film in film school for its use of sound effects and editing, also I’m sure just for its utter fabulousness. Now that we are watched and recorded and spied on 24/7 by government (NSA), corporate and even individual entities, it all seems rather quaint.
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Still, the twist/comeuppance at the end still works for me. Also it’s the old days of San Francisco – when a middle class was predominant there. These somewhat dark films from the 1970s do remind one of that great era of less inequality.

Of course, I’m a little late to the comparison. The Atlantic did a piece on this last year, worth reading.

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COPS: Everything that’s wrong about America in one short “reality” show

OK so you probably read about a cameraman getting shot and killed on the production of this show, recently. Which is a really very sad and unfortunate thing, both for this man, his family and for the show and its fans.

yeah you wish

yeah you wish

Though it’s pretty surprising this is the first time it happened. Probably, if you found this story somehow through the Internet, then you’re like me, because, yes – I admit that I sometimes watch COPS. Sometimes, even, I binge watch COPS (episodes are only 22 minutes long; also, they’re often set in Palm Springs, where I used to live, which gives me a kick).

But it’s like that empty high, that kind you get from the pink and white iced cupcake you know you shouldn’t be eating but do anyway and you’re gagging about 20 minutes later. Because COPS brings out the worst in us.

It’s about making us laugh at the misfortunes of poor people, mostly. Yuck yuck yuck, here’s another poor white trash slob getting pulled out from under his trailer. Surprise – he’s not wearing a shirt, he’s drunk, and he has no teeth. Well – I may have it bad, but not that bad! Not yet anyway.

Also I think the show really points out the absurd futility of the war on drugs, and the asinine laws we have on the books which routinely revel in absolutely destroying young men’s lives. More often than not, they’re young men of color. Although I’m sure the producers of COPS go to great pains to at least give the illusion that they’re unbiased in reporting on crime and race.

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But it’s so often set in some small town in a backward state where these minor drug crimes are felonies and it’s the way to keep these people off the streets, right – we don’t have that slavery anymore so that sure as hell won’t work – so send them all to prison. That’s the plan, right?

I get mad. Not only am I watching these COPS, who are probably decent guys and gals just hoping to make a living so they can buy a house and have kids and get a decent pension if they don’t get shot first, participate in this ruin but I also see it’s my tax dollars going to waste.

And sometimes their moralizing makes absolutely no sense. I remember one episode set in Vegas (another one of their favorite locations) and they were busting a young lady for streetwalking on the Strip. In the interview with the female task force officer, the girl talked about the money she’d make turning tricks (hundreds of dollars per night, or more) and the Person in Charge went on to detail how bad a life this would be, etc etc. But this young lady knows, like you and I both do, that a pretty 19 year old girl with perhaps a H.S. diploma, if that, in today’s world, might be able to get a fast food minimum wage job in a hellhole place like that, paying $8.25 per hour and requiring her to wear a silly costume and be a latter day wage slave – with no real hope of ever getting anywhere economically.

Not that prostitution is a sure road to a fantastic middle class life (though it could be a start) at least it pays a decent wage and there’s some semblance of control (at least this particular girl seemed quite smart to me). So what’s the real crime here? A no-victim offense like prostitution, or the systematic elimination of any real route to middle class?

All this is to say I resent the moralizing this show wants to convey and their definition of “crime.”

I’m really not sure who the real criminals are anymore.

 

 

 

 

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The Writer’s Friend: Gary Shusett, RIP

Gary Shusett  photo candidcoverage

Gary Shusett
photo: candidcoverage

So many deaths in 2013! I saw the obits for Gary Shusett while I was in New York last month helping my dad with the arrangements following the death of my aunt.

I certainly didn’t want to not remark on Gary. He was such an original of the type that you still occasionally find in Hollywood, a link between those golden filmmaking years of the 60s and 70s and today (I know it’s weird to call the 60s and 70s golden years, but it’s all relative, right).

Gary died on August 9, the day after my aunt Joan, of cancer at 72, according the obit in the Times.

I took a couple of seminars from Gary’s organization, Sherwood Oaks College, over the years, mostly having to do with access to producers and agents, always hoping for that prime bit of perfect information that gets you a foot in the door.
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Gary was remarkable in his success at getting the major folks to appear at his seminars, a constant amazement that they actually would show up. I also found him to be genuine and honest – at times brutally so, about the role of writers in Hollywood and what were the best strategies for success (which may or may not dovetail with anyone’s personal ambitions).

I also did an internship with his company on script coverage, which was good training as well as just good for a writer to know how scripts and short stories (we read a lot of science fiction) are evaluated by readers.

He will be missed. I don’t know who will fill that void, but I certainly hope it’s someone. Another great loss from the writing/mentor world, who joins beloved teacher Linda Palmer in that Big Writers’ Room upstairs.

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Jazzfest 2013 photos and video

Friday, May 4 was a wet spring day in New Orleans, so there’s a lot of mud in these pictures and in the video. Despite the weather, the music was fantastic and Kate (Kate Maleckar, my sister) and I had a great time sloshing around.

Here’s a phone video of some of Beausoleil and Irma Thomas in the Gospel Tent.
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More Downton Abbey: Matthew’s shocker, then again, you knew it was coming

Dan Stevens

Dan Stevens

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Another Dan Stevens photo

When I first saw the final episode, where new dad, Downton Abbey heir Matthew Crawley (Dan Stevens), dies in a horrible car accident (ah, those long ago days of convertibles without either seat belts or air bags or roll bars or anything like that – can you just imagine all the blood and guts spilled all over the world’s nascent highways) – must admit, I was pretty shocked they’d kill off one of the main characters in the show. And right after, I mean right fracking after, his first child is born.  

Lady Mary was a f.c.* handful when she had her man, can you just imagine what she’s going to be like now?

I suppose, even though we were shown a long, lingering shot of Matthew under said convertible, lifeless eyes open, a trickle of British blood making its way into the verdant moist earth of the colorful English countryside – there’s always the possibility of a TV-style resurrection – he’s not really dead after all, it’s some horrid dream sequence, it was his evil twin all along, that sort of thing.

But we know from the linked article here that the actor is leaving the show. And the creative force behind Downton Abbey, Julian Fellowes, tells us it’s pretty normal in an English series when an actor leaves a show, to kill them off in some horrendous fashion.

Geez, Julian, we’re so not used to that over here!

But it was necessary, wasn’t it? It really had to happen, didn’t it? I mean —

we couldn’t let Matthew get away with being Matthew for much longer.

Especially after innocent Lady Sybil’s demise. Not to mention the convenient death of former fiancee Saint Lavinia to the 1918 flu pandemic.
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I mean, really, have you ever known a TV character to be so blessed by Fortuna? Plucked out of obscurity by being the gazillionth heir to the Downton title and fortune – because the person who was supposed to get it died in the Titanic sinking – or wait, no he didn’t, he was just burnt to un-recognizability but very much still alive (and perhaps coming back in all his horrid scarring to reclaim his mansion and his fortune . . . unlikely).

Matthew gets the girl, loses the girl, finds another girl yet realizes he’s in love with girl #1, the one who has the most money anyway, and then there’s that convenient flu. And let’s not forget about the War. The Great War. Surviving it at all is pretty unlikely, so our poor Matthew is injured, and he’s paralyzed from the waist down. Which also means that nothing down there is working, i.e., no sex, no little Granthams. But wait — no, he’s not really injured after all, and he’s going to be able to walk, and he’s going to be able to f***! Yay!

So, everything’s hunky dory. Oh wait, no it’s not. It’s not because that old fool Lord Grantham has invested the money – that Matthew would inherit – in an actual, real-life Ponzi scheme! So the money is gone, and the Downton Abbey world is now land-poor. Unless something big comes to save them, well, they’ll be boring B&B hosts and Matthew will be spending his time making scones and clearing pathways through the woods for rich Americans. Unimaginable horrors!

But then, oh, wait again! Turns out Lavinia’s (you remember her, the Saint who died of the flu so Matthew and Mary could be together, dontchaknow) father has died and left Matthew (again, the only heir around) a whole boatload of money to save Downton Abbey!

The foolish boy is not going to take it, he feels so guilty (as he should) but you know he ends up taking it like we knew he would all along. Cause once you’re rich, well, you get used to it. I mean, the show’s called Downton Abbey, not Downton Townhouse.

So you see, things were just too good, and not just good, they were really unfair. That karma had to come back and bite Matthew Crawley but good.

So, I think he’s really dead.

* fairly c***y

** and thank you cousin Mary C. for the “oh, wait” meme. So good I stole it.

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